


A Matter of Trust

by Caiti (Caitriona_3)



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ace of Pentacles, Gen, Tarot, Tarot Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caitriona_3/pseuds/Caiti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something goes wrong on a mission, and now Clint needs Darcy's help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Matter of Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Steph's Tarot Challenge. I received the Ace of Pentacles. After looking it up, this is the portion that caught my attention: _In matters of love and relationships, the ace of pentacles Tarot card meaning indicates stability, increased trust, and new/stronger bonds made in an existing relationship._ This came out a little more angsty than I'd planned, but there you are.

[ ](http://s591.beta.photobucket.com/user/Caitriona3/media/Avengers/Tarot_zpsfad2288c.jpg.html)

“Darcy!”

Darcy Lewis hurried into the media room as the echo of her name died away. She found Natasha Romanoff waiting for her. Tasha’s face held a strange look, a repressed panic. “Tasha? What’s wrong?”

“You need to come with me,” Tasha grabbed her hand and began hauling her out of the house.

Darcy almost tripped trying to keep up. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Clint.” Tasha’s voice, so clipped, so abrupt, held a hint of desperation. Darcy quit trying to talk and just followed. Whatever was wrong had to be bad, very bad, if Tasha was this desperate. Clint Barton was Tasha’s partner, and one of Darcy’s best friends, but she was never pulled into missions.

Tasha drove through the streets of New York like a cabbie’s nightmare. Darcy finally resorted to keeping her eyes closed and holding on. As they sped through the night, Tasha explained the situation. 

“It was over,” Tasha bit out. “We’d taken them all down. Down isn’t out.” She took a curve at high speed, and Darcy felt certain they had been up on two wheels at one point. Tasha continued. “One of them managed to set off a device of some kind. It unleashed these…” Darcy looked at her as she trailed off, frowning in confusion. “I don’t know what the hell they were. Some kind of genetically manipulated bat I think. They swarmed up and towards us. Iron Man, Thor, and Hawkeye took out most of them, but one got through. It bit Clint.”

“Then what?” Darcy asked. She slammed them shut again as Tasha cut off a delivery truck with inches to spare.

“I got it, but too late.” A hint of self-disgust entered Tasha’s voice.

“It wasn’t your fault, Tasha,” Darcy soothed. 

“I don’t know what it did to him,” Tasha said, ignoring Darcy’s attempt to calm her. “It injected something though, and now he’s…he’s feeling _everything_. We can’t get within fifteen feet of him without him picking up our emotions.” She shot down the expressway. Darcy felt a little safer about opening her eyes, but kept a tight hold on the handle. Tasha gave her a look. “And it’s not just the surface stuff. He’s picking up…” Her voice faded once more.

Darcy drew in a sharp breath. “He’s picking up all the hard stuff, isn’t he?” She bit her lip. “Cap’s ghosts, Tony’s issues with his dad…”

“Bruce and Hulk’s mess,” Tasha confirmed. Darcy watched as she wet her lips. “And he’s picking up all of my…if I get too close, my red starts bleeding into him. You and he have been getting close.”

“As friends,” Darcy noted, worried about how much Tasha seemed to be expecting of her. “We’re not…“ She waved her free hand around. 

“You’re more than you think you are,” Tasha replied as she finally began to slow down. “Clint trusts you. He’s trusted you with more of himself than he’s ever trusted anybody but Coulson and I.” Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Plus, you don’t have the same past-“

“You don’t know my past.” Darcy frowned at her. She didn’t have the same blood drenched past as the others, but that didn’t mean her life had been lollipops and rainbows either. Granted, she had a better grasp on her past than the rest of them did, but she had faced her demons. Faced them, fought them, and won.

“You have to try.” Tasha pulled into a parking lot outside a small park. She turned to Darcy. “Please, Darcy, you have to try.” Her eyes were unbelievably wide; for once, Tasha didn’t even attempt to hide her fear. “We can’t get to him. If we call this in…” Her voice died away and she shook her head.

“He’ll be a lab rat.” Darcy took a deep, deep breath, trying to calm the queasiness of her stomach. “Okay, okay, I’ll try.”

Tasha’s shoulder slumped in relief and she led Darcy to the small group hidden behind a clump of trees. Most of the team stood well back from where Clint sat with his back against a tree. His knees were drawn up, and he had his forehead pressed against them. It painted a picture of pain, of someone trying to guard themselves, and almost of despair. The two women stepped up to the group and stopped. 

Darcy stared at him before turning her eyes to the others. All of them shared the same look of pain, of a desire to help, but there was something else as well. Each of their faces bore a thread of fear, a common fear shared by deeply private people. She glanced to Clint before her eyes turned back. They wanted to help, but they were scared, scared of what he might learn.

Steve Rogers – a man from the past whose ghosts were too recent, too new for sharing with others, even if the rest of the world had moved on seventy years ago.

Tony Stark – an insanely brilliant man who never got to face down his personal demons and had only begun to grasp why it was a problem.

Thor – a transplanted alien who only recently learned compassion for the stranger at the cost of losing his brother twice over.

Bruce Banner – a genius who, like Tony, never got to face his demons, but with much worse consequences riding on his shoulder and ready to take over if he lost control.

And Tasha – whose ghosts were multiple and whose balance depended so heavily on Clint some days that she could not balance him now.

Darcy closed her eyes, took another deep breath, and moved towards him. His muscles started to clench, but the tension seemed to drain away every step she took. He never really lifted his head, but he tilted it enough to peer over his knees at her. She knelt in front of him, her knees grazing his feet, and waited. Their eyes locked.

Clint swallowed. “You don’t…” He took a breath. “I can feel you, but it’s dull, not sharp. It doesn’t hurt, having you here?” His voice ended in a question.

“I’m not afraid,” she answered simply. 

“I don’t understand.”

Darcy reached out, paused a moment, and then brushed her fingertips over his forehead before resting her hand on his knee. His shoulders relaxed even more, and he moved his head to look directly at her. She gave him a soft smile. “My major stuff is all old news,” she explained. “I got to face my terrors and anxieties a long time ago. I conquered them; all I’ve got left are smoke and shadows. They make me think twice sometimes, but they don’t freeze me in my tracks anymore.”

“Then why…?” He trailed off, peering over her shoulder at the others.

“They’re worried, scared of what you might pick up,” she responded. “It’s new to most of them; this kind of fight is anyway. Tasha’s been dealing with her demons head-on. So has Bruce, but Hulk makes it hard to put them aside. The others didn’t have them or didn’t acknowledge them until recently.”

His eyes closed and his voice fell to a whisper. “Even Tasha hurts.”

“I know,” her voice dropped to match his. “I know she does. She’s been working on this stuff, but _you’ve_ been her balance, her foundation.” She moved to sit next to him, her hand still on his knee, but now she was pressed to his side. “It’s throwing her off, losing that.”

He leaned back and reached out. Lifting her hand off his knee, he enclosed it in his. “My head is killing me.”

“Does it feel like it’s going away?” 

“No,” Clint muttered, closing his eyes and letting his head rest against the tree. “It’s…well…” He huffed out a breath. “This is going to sound weird.”

Darcy bumped his shoulder with hers. “Weirder than the rest of the night?”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Just a little,” he replied. “When you touched me, it felt like something blocked them out.”

“Okay,” she drew out the word. “Going to agree, that’s a little weird.” She bit her lip as she thought about it. “I have no idea.” Darcy looked up and met Tasha’s eyes.

Tasha walked slowly forward, and nothing happened. Clint didn’t even seem to notice. Every step she took, Tasha appeared ready to backpedal if it became necessary, but she reached them without incident. Slowly, gingerly she knelt down. 

Clint opened his eyes. The two partners held each other’s gaze. He gradually let go of Darcy’s hand and she pulled away. They separated.

Pain flashed across Clint’s face. His eyes slammed closed and he curled in on himself.

Darcy grabbed his hand, but gestured Tasha to stay put. The pain drained out of Clint’s expression almost immediately and he sucked in a breath. “Oh, that’s different,” Darcy commented in a shaking voice.

“You’re filtering it,” he murmured, his eyes opening slowly. “I felt her walking up, but it was muted. Then I let go of you and you moved away.” He shook his head. “It was raw and burning. I couldn’t get out of it; I couldn’t find a center, somewhere to focus, until you touched me.” He met Tasha’s eyes. “It’s still there, but it’s like there’s a curtain, or a window between us.” His hand tightened around hers. “What if it doesn’t go away?”

The air grew heavy as the silence thickened.

“You know what,” Darcy broke in. “It is way too late to try and think about this right now. I’m tired, and you’ve got to be exhausted. We’ll try and get some sleep, and we’ll figure this out in the morning.” She lifted her free hand and touched his cheek. “One way or another, we are going to figure this out. Either we’ll find out how to make it go away, or we’ll come up with a way to control it.”

“Okay,” he agreed, standing and letting her guide him towards the others with Tasha right behind them. “Okay, let’s go home.”

“I promise, Clint,” she whispered. He looked down at her, and she gave him stared back resolutely. “I promise I am going to help you through this.”

He tugged her forward for a quick hug. “I know.”

“Good,” she said. “Then let’s go home.”


End file.
